Alcohol indulgence during pregnancy ups epilepsy risk in new born kids

Alcoholism during pregnancy has never been encouraged by doctors worldwide but now there are more reasons to this. A new study has established that Alcohol consumption during pregnancy poses threat to the new born in the form of epilepsy. The study reiterates the fact that women during pregnancy should keep away from alcohol and lead a healthy lifestyle. The study has been published in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research journal.

The research to study the affects of Alcoholism during pregnancy has been carried out by researchers at Queens University in Ontario. Prior to this many researches have taken place in this field which have linked alcoholism during pregnancy to many other complications. The study however has not been able to point out the cause of the linkage between alcoholism and epilepsy.

Maternal drinking during pregnancy often results in a condition known as fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).The children who suffer from FASD are exposed to six times greater risk of suffering from Epilepsy , the study reported. They also were exposed to the probability of undergoing through one seizure at least during their lifetime. “This report builds on a growing body of evidence that maternal drinking during pregnancy may put a child at greater risk for an even wider variety of neurologic and behavioral health problems than we had appreciated before” Dan Savage, Regents’ Professor at the University of New Mexico’s Department of Neurosciences said.

The results of the study were arrived at after examining histories of 425 individuals from two FASD clinics. The subjects were aged between two and forty nine. The researchers tried to correlate alcohol consumption during pregnancy with the occurrence of epilepsy and seizures. Around one percent developed epilepsy, but with FASD 6 percent of people suffered from this disorder.12 percent of them had at least one seizure.

The message of the study on Alcoholism during pregnancy is loud and clear. Alcoholism is a big no for pregnant woman. “The consensus recommendation of scientists and clinical investigators, along with public health officials around the world, is very clear — a woman should abstain from drinking during pregnancy as part of an overall programme of good prenatal care.” said Dr Dan Savage, a neuroscientist at the University of New Mexico.

source: http://infocera.com